Learn How To Control Your Mind (Use This To Brainwash Yourself)

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to receive inspirational text messages from me for free to your phone, text me right now 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about how to brainwash yourself in the step-by-step process of how to control your mind. And so for me, I have always been very interested in thoughts. I've been interested in where they come from, why we have them, and what they really do to shape our lives.

0:49And one of the most interesting parts of the human brain is something that's called the reticular activating system. And you need to understand the reticular activating system and how it plays such a massive role in shaping your perception of your reality. So the reticular activating system is a network of neurons that's located in the brainstem. And this system of neurons filters the immense amount of information that we receive from our environment and determines what we pay attention to. And the question immediately comes up like, why does this exist? Why does this part of our brain exist? And when you look at the brain and you look at the overall sensory information that can come into your brain, there's estimates, and I did research on this just to give you an idea.

1:39There's estimates that show that our sensory organs, which should be sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell, take in roughly about 11 million bits of information per second. So right now sitting here, as you're listening to this podcast, your brain is taking in 11 million bits of information per second. Now, it doesn't mean that you're paying attention to 11 million bits of information per second. Because if I say, feel the bottom of your right foot, you weren't paying attention to that up until this very moment. But it doesn't mean that you weren't feeling it. It was just filtering it out because there wasn't any pain.

2:15There was no reason to. But you put your focus on it and now you're paying attention to it. So what your reticulatory activating system does is it takes those 11 million bits of information per second and what your brain could take in and then it only filters it down to about 50 to 120 bits. So it filters out almost 11 million of the 11 million. It only lets through the door 50 to 100 bits per second, 50 to 120 bits per second. The way you want to think of the reticular activating system is like a bouncer at the door. The bouncers don't let everybody in, right? So like let's say that there's a bouncer that's going to get fired tonight if he doesn't let in 200 pretty women.

2:57Well, he's not going to be looking at any of the men. He's going to filter out all of the men in his mind. And every woman that walks by, he's going to be like, hey, do you want to come in? Hey, do you want to come in? He's not going to notice any of the guys. He's only going to see the cute girls. That is what your brain does. And what is interesting about it is that if you're not in control of your reticular activating system, if you're not setting it, it's going to go off and filter out whatever it wants to, but you can set it. And so like another example that most people have heard of is the red car theory.

3:28The red car theory is like if you're on your way to work right now and I asked you how many red cars have you passed so far, you probably couldn't recall any of the red cars. It doesn't mean that the red cars weren't there. It just means that your reticular activating system wasn't set on them. But if you decide, okay, I'm going to get car and I'm going to drive to work today and I'm going to look at as many red cars as I possibly can, you're going to see red cars everywhere. And it's not because the amount of red cars increased, but your reticularity activating system has tuned into that specific detail because it has now become relevant to you.

4:04And so this is what it comes down to. Like literally this past weekend, my, well, it was my wife's sister was staying at the studio where I currently am right now. We have rooms inside of the studio that people can stay in in this house. And her and her boyfriend were driving over to our house. It's a 12 minute drive. And they're like, man, we've been seeing a lot of Teslas recently. I wonder how many Teslas will pass in the next 12 minutes from the studio house to this house. And they counted 40. Now they probably didn't notice all 40 or they wouldn't have noticed all 40 if they didn't set the reticular activating system to find them.

4:38And that's really what it comes down to. Another example of how this could work without actually specifically setting the reticular reactivating system. I wrote about this in my book, Level Up. And if we're driving down an interstate and I'm driving the car and you really have to go to the bathroom and I pull off and I pull off on the next exit, but I hear a clicking sound and my car's making a whole bunch of weird noise. And I'm like, man, I need to find a mechanic. Then as I'm driving, I am going to see only things that look like mechanic shops. I'm going to basically filter out everything else.

5:12If you really need to go to the bathroom, you're going to be looking at every single place that I stopped that might have a bathroom, a gas station, a McDonald's, a Burger King. Hell, if you have to go really bad, you might start looking at bushes. Now you have to understand we're on the exact same route. We're in the exact same car. And so this is why I say we're all seeing the same things, but we're all seeing something different. And this is a quote that I see that people re-quote me all the time on it is we're all seeing the same things, but we're all seeing something different. Is we're in the same car, but my reticular activating system is focused towards where can I find a mechanic shop?

5:46Yours is, I really need to go to the bathroom. Can this guy pull over as soon as possible? And so when you look at stuff like that, or you look at the red car theory, what they do is they demonstrate selective attention, which is the key function of your reticular activating system. Your reticular activating system sifts through the millions of bits of sensory information that we receive and highlights what aligns with our current focus or interests or beliefs. When you think about a red car, for instance, your reticular activating system filters out all of the irrelevant stimuli and makes red cars more noticeable.

6:27It's essentially the bouncer at the door. It's essentially the channel that you're tuning your brain into. And so it's really important to know about this and how it works because I'm going to actually tell you how to use it to make your life better. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. Now, when you look at the reticular activating system, it's not good. It's not bad. It's just a thing that happens. And the more aware that you are of your neurology and your brain and how it works, the more you can use it to your benefit. it. It is a tool that you can use to help you create the life that you want.

7:04But if you don't set it, then it's just going to work on its own. And if it's just working on its own, the question is, what is it finding? Well, it's going to be finding essentially what you think about, what you focus on, what you believe about yourself, what you believe about the world, and you will 100 % find and create in your life whatever it is that your brain is focusing on. And this is where the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy really comes from. You know, the reticular activating system basically creates the self-fulfilling prophecy. And, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy isn't just like a term.

7:43It's actually a psychological phenomenon that's been studied for a very long time. And it occurs when your beliefs and expectations about, say, for instance, a situation influence your behavior in a way that causes your beliefs to come true. And so you believe something and because you believe it, it influences your actions, your behavior, and that causes those beliefs to come true. And so a good example of this, you know, if you look at the reticular activating system, it really plays a crucial role in the processing and the filtering of the information that supports our expectations and our beliefs and ignore all of the information that contradicts our beliefs and our expectations.

8:24So like, let's say for instance, that you believe that you are not good at public speaking. Well, your reticular activating system will focus on signs of nervousness while you're up on stage, the mistakes that you made when you speak in front of an audience. And really what it does with this selective attention, it can then in turn, because it starts to focus on where you screwed up, focus on where you were anxious and nervous. And that selective attention can then increase your anxiety and reinforce your belief that, yeah, I'm not good at public speaking, which will then lead to you having poor performance in the next speech that you have to give more anxiety in the speech that you have to give.

9:07On the flip side of that, if you're the type of person that just has tons of confidence and you just believe that you are a confident and capable speaker, your reticular activating system will highlight positive feedback from other people. Oh my gosh, your speech was so great. It's amazing. The signs of success, the laughs that you got in the crowd and your reticular activating system out of a 30 minute speech will highlight and focus on the parts that would make it seem like it was a successful speech, which in turn will boost your confidence and improve your performance. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

9:42What you think about yourself, you are going to create because it's going, what you think about yourself is going to change your behavior. And so if you think the world is a bad place, you're going to see all of the bad in the world that exists and you're going to find it. Is there bad in the world? Absolutely. Is it easy to find it? Absolutely. Is there good in the world? Absolutely. Is it easy to find it? Absolutely. And so if you think the world's a bad place, you're going to find all of the examples where it's a bad place. You're going to look for it. You're setting your filter to find it the same way that you set your filter to find a red car.

10:17If you think, oh, my husband's an asshole. Well, you're going to find all of the ways where he has been and you're going to filter out all the ways where maybe he did something sweet for you. If you think the world is a good place, well, you're going to see all the places where it could be good. If you think I am worthy of love, well, then you're going to remember the moments of your childhood where you got lots of love from your parents, the day that you got married, the way that your children love you if you think you're worthy of love. If you think you're not worthy of love, you're going to find all of the examples in your life of where you're not worthy of love, when you were cheated on, when you were younger, when you got broken up with and your heart was broken.

10:52You're just going to find all of the examples because your brain is filtering out everything that does not align with your belief system. If you think you're going to be successful, you'll find all of the reasons in front of you why you're going to be successful. And you're going to start connecting with people that will help you be more successful. If you think that you won't be successful, you're going to find all the reasons why you won't be successful. And essentially it boils down to one of my favorite phrases, which I've said on this podcast quite a few times, which is abracadabra. We think when we hear abracadabra, you know, up until two years ago, I thought it was like, oh, it's just the phrase that magicians say when they pull a rabbit out of the hat, abracadabra.

11:30But abracadabra is actually an ancient Hebrew word. And it means as I speak, I create. As I speak, I create. As I speak into the world, whatever it is, I create that. I create the reality that I speak, but I also create the reality that I think. Because what is thinking? Thinking is just speaking in your own head. It's just you speaking to yourself in your own head without any words coming out. So when we look at this, okay, now we understand how this thing works. Hopefully you understand how it works. How do you use the reticular activating system to create the mindset that you want and to create the life that you want?

12:06Okay, well, I'm gonna give you a couple different steps to help you with it. Okay. What you need to do is you need to remember this, you have to set your reticular activating system every morning for what you want. This is something that is part of my morning routine that I've been doing for years. I speak to myself like crazy a couple episodes ago, you know, I did episodes on affirmations and how to speak to yourself and all of that. This is how I work. And I've, I've been doing this for years and years and years to set my mind on exactly what it is that I want. And so the first thing you're going to want to make sure that you do, I would get out a pen and paper and I would just write down and just decide what it is that you want and what it is that you want to believe.

12:47So what is it that you want in this world? Where do you want your life to be? What does the future look like? Start writing it out in detail. What is, if you had 3 ,650 perfect days in a row, where would you be in 10 years? And you start thinking about what it is that you want your life to be in the future. And then you start thinking, well, what do I need to believe in order to have that happen? What do I need to think about myself in order to make that happen? What do I need to think about others? What do I need to think about the world in order to make that happen? And then you write it all down in the key of this, this you have to get as clear as you possibly can about this, because the more clear that you can be, the more clear that you can set your reticular redactiving system on what is it you need to see and notice and not filter out from your mind.

13:32So that's the first thing. The second thing is you've got to figure out how you're going to talk to yourself about this. So the second thing is to create a phrase, to create an affirmation that lines up with of whatever it is that you want. And so I always say you have to wake up in the morning and basically set your GPS for how you wanna feel today. Same way that when you get in your car, you set your GPS so that you can get to your destination. Well, I'm gonna set my GPS for how I wanna feel today. So one of the things that I do, I do it every single morning, I did it this morning, I'm probably six months in a row of doing this exact same thing.

14:04I have a breath work that I do, it's about 18 minutes long, and inside of the breath work, one of the things that the guy says, which I thought was corny until I realized it started working is you do the breath work and then you hold your breath for a minute and a half. And he says, smile as you're holding your breath. And for a while I didn't smile at all, but he's like smiling. I started smiling. And I noticed that when I started smiling, when he said to smile, I felt better at the end of the breath work sessions. It was really odd. And the reason why is because the muscles in your face, when you smile actually influence your brain and influence your feelings and your hormones.

14:36And so what I do is I smile and I just tell myself today is going to be amazing. Today is going to be an amazing day. And I say it over and over again, today's going to be an amazing day. And it just makes me feel better about the day I'm about to go into. A few episodes ago, I talked to you about how one of my affirmations I've been using for years is I was brought here to change the world. I was brought here. I am brought here to change the world. And so when I get fearful about like, oh my gosh, there's this big thing, this big next thing that I'm stepping into, I immediately bring back up the way that I want to think I was brought here to change the world.

15:09And then the immediate thought that comes in my head is all of the people who have sent me emails and sent me Instagram messages and come up to me at events that I've run and speeches that I've given. And I'm like, oh yeah, they've been telling me how much it's helped. So clearly I was brought here to change the world. And so it's shifting my mindset and my reticular activating system is now finding all of those examples versus finding the examples where I'm not good enough. So that's the second thing is to create a phrase or an affirmation around how you want to set your GPS. And then the third one is you need to visualize it.

15:40So just sit there and vividly imagine the outcome that you want. And you train your reticular activating system at that point in time to recognize people, places, things, opportunities, resources that are around you throughout the day that will help you achieve the outcome that you're going towards. And the process works because you're basically creating a mental image that aligns with your goals, which the reticular activating system then uses as a filter to prioritize relevant information. So if you're like, I'm going to make, you know, a million dollars this year, and I'm going to do it this way.

16:17And that's the thing that you're focused on. Well, then your brain's going to filter out anything that doesn't align with that the same way that your brain filters out anything that doesn't align with the red car. Once you have set your reticular activating system on the red car. And so what you're trying to do, and the point of this is instead of just waking up and just, hey, I hope today goes well, maybe I'll get a client. Maybe I'll feel good about myself. Maybe I'll have a great relationship with my children. It's like, no, I'm waking up every single morning and I'm using the most incredible piece of machinery in the universe, which is my brain, to become a heat-seeking missile for the life that I want to create.

16:57And so it's extremely important. You can wake up in the morning, you can just kind of go through life or you can wake up in the morning and you can decide that you are going to be the person that goes out there and creates and finds and filters in your brain every single thing that is that you want to create the life that you want. So that right there is how you brainwash yourself to control your mind to create the life that you want. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a massive favor. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it.

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18:26So if you want to learn more about it, go to mindsetmentor.com. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way, leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.