The Complete Retreat

Master Your Unconscious Mind to Transform Your Life & Business w/ TJ Fry

• Ian Vogel • Episode 6

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Discover how the unconscious mind dictates 90-95% of your daily decisions and behaviors, often without you realizing it. Mindset Coach TJ Fry reveals powerful techniques to identify and transform limiting beliefs that may be sabotaging your retreat business success.

Learn why understanding your "mental operating system" is crucial for breakthrough results, how to reprogram negative thought patterns, and practical exercises you can implement immediately to create lasting change for yourself and your retreat participants.

This episode provides retreat creators with valuable pre-event strategies that increase participant engagement and transformation before they even arrive at your retreat!

01:04 Welcome to the Complete Retreat Podcast
07:40 Exploring Imposter Syndrome
10:42 The Role of Limiting Beliefs
16:04 Conscious vs. Unconscious Mind
27:08 Prime Directives of the Unconscious Mind
33:06 The Power of Habits
36:02 Integrating the Conscious and Unconscious Minds
36:57 The Power of Positive Language
42:05 The Reticular Activating System
49:24 Techniques for Harnessing the Unconscious Mind
01:02:53 Practical Applications and Client Success
01:10:08 Conclusion and Contact Information

About the Guest:
TJ Fry is a Mindset Coach and Transformation Facilitator specializing in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and unconscious mind work. With extensive training in understanding human behavior patterns, TJ helps entrepreneurs identify and overcome limiting beliefs that prevent business growth.

He's a sought-after guest speaker at retreats and masterminds, where his work has consistently produced breakthrough results for participants. His approach combines psychological principles with practical applications for lasting transformation.

About RetreatHelp:
RetreatHelp is an end-to-end business consulting and marketing systems provider with a mission to simplify the business of retreats, helping conscious leaders sell out their events faster, increase revenue, and have a greater impact with less stress.

We specialize in helping retreat leaders and conscious business owners streamline and scale their businesses through our comprehensive Four Pillar System: marketing, sales, technical systems, and business operations. Using cutting-edge technology, AI integration, and automated solutions, RetreatHelp enables retreat facilitators to focus on creating transformative experiences while reducing manual workload.

Guest Links:
✦ Website: https://tjfry.com
✦ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tjfry406/

Podcast links:
✦ Website: https://retreathelp.com/podcast
✦ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/64GwMQE2QPLqDE9fFxIFR2
✦ ApplePodcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-complete-retreat-podcast/id1784541260
✦ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RetreatHelp

Additional links:
✦ Website: https://retreathelp.com/
✦ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retreat.help/
✦ RetreatHelp Private Community: https://community.retreathelp.com/login

✦ This video was made with DeScript, the best AI enhanced video recording and editing software in the known Universe: https://get.descript.com/5f13gxl2u8m3

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

my personal favorite saying is where you point your fingers, where you send your power. And so if you're pointing your finger elsewhere, it's the employees, it's Taxes. It's the insurance companies. It's so difficult to do X, Y, and Z. Like those are all legitimate frustrations and concerns and challenges. It's just that once you accept the responsibility of saying, all right, what can I do about this? Then you start making forward progress.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera:

You ever had a goal or wanted to achieve something in life that just felt out of reach and no matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't seem to get that thing? There may have even been examples of people around you who were doing the thing that you wanted to do, yet it just felt almost impossible to achieve. Well, according to experts like Dr. Joe Dispenza and Dr. Bruce Lipton, 90 to 95 percent of our lives are dictated by our unconscious mind. So considering that the unconscious mind plays such a huge role in how we experience life, it's probably safe to say that knowing a little bit about how it works can be very valuable. And that is what we're going to be diving into today. What is up? Welcome to another episode of the Complete Retreat Podcast, where we talk to retreat creators and industry experts about what it takes to build a thriving retreat business. Today, my guest is none other than T. J. Frye, who is a Mindset Coach and Transformation Facilitator. TJ has a wealth of knowledge about human behavior, the unconscious mind, the conscious mind, and how all of those things work together to create our experience of life. and in this episode, we dive deep into how the unconscious mind works, how it interacts with the conscious mind, and how that informs our experience of life. We also talk about limiting beliefs, how they're formed, and towards the end, TJ gives a couple of really powerful practices that can really help to identify limiting beliefs and unwind them and start to make changes in your life. TJ is also a guest speaker at several different events. So he shares some practical tips that event organizers and retreat creators can use to help give their clients value before they even show up to the retreat. This is a great episode. You're going to want to make sure to stick around all the way to the end. So let's just get into it.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

T. J. My man, what's going on? It's good to have you on the podcast. It's been a while since we've connected and spoken, and I've really been looking forward to having this conversation with you because I know the amount of information and knowledge and value you bring to your clients and to the world in general. Um, Yeah, really looking forward to getting into this conversation, and I'd like to start off with a question that's that's basically, what are you excited about? What are you really looking forward to in the new year? 2025 is coming up soon, so I'd love to, to start off with that and know where you're at right now and what's got you excited?

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Yeah. Well, you and my brother, thank you for having me, man. I'm really happy to be here. As far as what I'm excited for in 2025 what I've been focusing on the past about two years now and going through some of the training with you on NLP or neuro linguistic programming for folks who don't know what that is. I work with clients to basically help them understand how people think. So it's not about what people are thinking. It's about how the neurological processes take place. That effectively focuses on what I call the filter system. Meaning an external event takes place. It comes through our five senses, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. And then we process it through things like our beliefs, our values, decisions, whether they be limiting or whatnot. And there's a whole litany of these different filters that I call them that we process this information through that then affects our physiology and our emotional state, which are directly connected to one another. And that, of course, affects our actions and behavior. So being able to swap out those filters, so to speak, such that you can effectively change the results and the actions that you're taking, and therefore the results that you're getting. And I do that utilizing the unconscious mind. So what I'm excited for is. Having the ability to work with some more clients and help people understand what their unconscious minds are, what they do, and then how to work with them. Cause it's not about control. It's about working in unison with our conscious minds and building that rapport between the two.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

And I know over the last year, you've been guest speaking at a series of retreats and masterminds. So I'm curious, as we get started, how that experience has been like for you and the kind of feedback that you've gotten in incorporating the the mental training that you will and the mental exercises and the processes that you impart on people. How has that been received in the, in the setting of a retreat and a mastermind?

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

It's the reception has been phenomenal. It's actually one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about doing this work is the responses that I get from people about, like, things like, man, I never heard this before. This makes so much sense. I'm, my marriage is better. My relationship with my employees are better. Like my making more money in my business, I feel better about myself. I finally feel worthy, whatever it may be. They're oftentimes very fundamental transformational shifts for people. And so when I do these keynote speeches and speak at these events with with a lot of people, generally the audience is full of a lot Entrepreneurs and people who have an entrepreneurial mindset who may not have their own business yet. But that's something that they want to do. And so generally it's people who are primarily, they're people who are willing to take responsibility for their own lot in life. And so they're willing to accept responsibility rather than being victims, which I submit is actually a major problem with our culture and our society right now, being that. There's always something we can blame our problems on. And that manifests in a litany of ways, one of which is like I constantly hear like, Oh, I don't have time. I don't have money. It's really hard to find employees. I'm sure that anybody who's an entrepreneur right now understands how difficult it can be to find good, reliable employees. Not that it's impossible cause it is, it's just very challenging. And so those are, they're very real challenges. Yeah. But the victim mindset is like, well, I can't do it. And so it's a decision somebody makes and to be able to help folks grasp onto where that comes from internally for them or unconsciously. is really important because then they can grasp where it's coming from and they can begin to address it. Because even though his entrepreneurs were up against an awful lot of similar challenges across whatever industry it may be, the fundamental shift for me is empowerment, meaning that once you, my personal favorite saying is where you point your fingers, where you send your power. And so if you're pointing your finger elsewhere, it's the employees, it's Taxes. It's the insurance companies. It's so difficult to do X, Y, and Z. Like those are all legitimate frustrations and concerns and challenges. It's just that once you accept the responsibility of saying, all right, what can I do about this? Then you start making forward progress. And I have found that entrepreneurs generally have that mindset already. Meaning that they're willing to accept the responsibility regardless of how difficult it may be. And so once that state has been reached then people really just explode from there and really just launch. So that's been really fun. The reaction has been phenomenal and that makes me feel like I'm doing something positive, so I love that.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

So when it comes to entrepreneurials and people of an entrepreneurial mindset, you've been working with a lot of people. So what are some patterns and reoccurring themes that you're seeing with within that group.

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Yeah. So, the biggest one bar none is we talked about it a little bit before we started recording, which was imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome. I personally, I think it's a really important thing for people to be aware of, right? A lot of entrepreneurial entrepreneurs have that. And it's a very common thing. And I would actually suggest to folks, I'd submit, what if that's actually the presenting problem and in the therapy and counseling world, we believe that the presenting problem is never the problem. And what I mean by that is that if you have a symptom, which is, the imposter syndrome, yes, that's, yes. Keep it's manifesting in a lot of different ways, whether that's like for myself in the past, I had trouble submitting invoices, collecting on invoices. If that's, you know, struggles for people like, Oh, I have to accept every single client that comes through the door. Cause I'm afraid of losing out on business or losing out on the revenue or whatever it is. It manifests in all kinds of different ways. Procrastination is another big one. But generally these symptoms, including imposter syndrome, seem to, for a lot of people, I subscribe to the 80, 20 principles. So for the majority of people, it seems to break down consistently to a lower theme of what I call a unconscious bedrock, if you will the lower present, or the lower actual issue is a lack of self worth I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I can't do anything right. Something like that. That's a generally a belief that's held at a very deep and very unconscious level. And so those things seem to be pretty consistent across the entrepreneur space. And I think in truth, I would say I don't like the words always and never. And at the same time, I use always because I think Everyone has that to some degree, and it can manifest in a litany of different ways. It's just, it's fascinating to me to see how consistent that's been. So usually that's a low hanging fruit that we can tackle pretty quickly and have some pretty significant results.

HypeMiC & FaceTime HD Camera-2:

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ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

So when it comes to a limiting belief, like I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, one of the core issues that, that leads to the symptom of something like procrastination or that, that feeling like you're, you don't want to be out and out in public and you can't show your face or you're not good enough, that, that manifests in different ways in our lives. But that core issue, that core wound, or that core limiting belief, how are those limiting beliefs put in place? I feel like as a baby, for the most part, we are a blank slate. And at some point in our lives, we realize, like, we start to take on a personality and we start to adopt the, our parents beliefs and different patterns that we pick up from people around us and in our environment. So how exactly are those limiting beliefs embedded in us and how do they become part of our unconscious?

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Well, so the most difficult and most accurate answer here is that it depends for every person, we all have different neurology and we all have different lived experiences, which means that there's effectively an infinite number of answers to that question, right? For 1 person, it might be 1 thing. And for another person, it's totally different. And ultimately, the underlying belief of I'm not good enough, or I'm not worthy is presented 1 way or another. And so. My job is to ask questions to help people ascertain what it is that caused those things to become present for them. Now, to be clear, the belief that I'm not good enough or that I'm not worthy. Is at one point it was a decision. All beliefs were once decisions, but not all decisions become beliefs. So if you think about a belief that's, largely universally held, right? Like the sun is going to rise tomorrow at some point when you learned, maybe as a young child, how the solar system works and how the earth rotates and the sun, we revolve around the sun and like how that works. You made a decision. Consciously or unconsciously that said, okay, the sun is going to rise tomorrow. No matter what happens. Well, that was a decision. And then over time, as you satisfied your evidence procedure, that this decision is correct, that becomes a belief. And so that happens with all beliefs. So largely something in my opinion, what usually happens is someone will have an experience in life that for whatever reason challenges their unconscious mind. And maybe puts them in an uncomfortable or unsafe or unprotected state and they, they feel vulnerable and they have these emotions that associate with with danger. And so the unconscious mind makes a decision that well, I'm just not good enough to do this and then that satisfies or the evidence. Over time satisfies that decision such that it becomes a belief. And in truth, it's, it can be really frustrating because when we look at it from that level, which is a very, like we're scratching the surface here. And when we look at it from that level, effectively, what's happening is people can get frustrated because they know they're like, well, I'm just not good enough, right? Well, why can't I do the things that I know I need to do? How come I'm. Not doing X, Y and Z that I know is going to increase my bottom line and help my business or help my clients in a better way. So those things all present. But again, those are those presenting problems. And so digging down, finding out that, oh, it really is because I actually feel like I'm unworthy or that I'm not good enough. Once we identify that, then we can ask our unconscious minds. Okay, what caused this? Where did it come from? So, why would we want to do this? I mean, the long and short of it, Ian, is that, as you know, it's really important to understand what our unconscious mind is and how it functions such that we can make changes that are effective for us. So we need to understand that our unconscious mind, everybody here, everybody listening to this I would submit that everyone has an unconscious mind. So first of all, why do we want to understand it? Well, we want to understand it so that we can take control to a certain degree and begin to work with it such that we can change our outcomes in a positive manner and potentially be able to change some of our underlying neurology from earlier in life. That was every single time it's put there, a belief or a decision or value or whatever have you, it's put there. Put there is installed for a positive purpose. Our unconscious mind largely wants to keep us comfortable and keep us safe, which from like a lizard brain caveman type evolutionary standpoint was good. Right? Because we didn't want to be an outcast. We didn't want to be ostracized. We wanted to be safe, be part of the group and make sure, and that basically perpetuated our survival. So all of these things, once we acknowledge that our unconscious mind made the decision that we were not good enough for our own protection, for our own benefit, for our own safety, whatever it may be for you, then we can actually begin to have the love and have the respect and honor that decision because it was made for our benefit. So instead of being frustrated, we can actually reframe it such that we can start to understand, okay, this was a decision that was made to protect me. And then we can literally begin breaking the walls down of what the unconscious mind is such that we can actually make the change. That's beneficial to uh, to achieve the outcome that is desired.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

when you say unconscious mind, so that that presupposes a difference between the unconscious mind and the conscious mind as if they're two separate things. How would you define each of those aspects of self and how. Are they interrelated and how do they connect and work together?

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

So the really short version is that one of the beliefs that I hold is that our Conscious and unconscious minds are different. When we're born they're fully integrated, right? I've got a little one year old girl and watching her, she doesn't speak English yet, so she can't think in language at this point. I'm fascinated by the idea of, well, how is she thinking, how is she processing? Well, right now it's in emotions. And so, she's integrated with the conscious and unconscious minds. And over time, as we grow, we begin to dissociate or dissociate. disintegrate, rather we our conscious and unconsc grow apart and that gap between the two we b called a critical barrier and to understand what they are we'll break down the conscious mind first. So the conscious mind our frontal lobe, like physically in our brain it's the front part of our brain of our its largely what sets us apart from the animal kingdom As human beings. And so what happens in the conscious mind, right? This is our egoic mind. And I don't mean ego and like an arrogant sense. I mean, ego in the sense of this is where I T. J. reside. Like, when I think about myself or when you think about yourself, that takes place in the frontal cortex in the frontal lobe. And so what's happening here is this is where it's happening. Logic, ration, rationale, right? And and our ego excels. This is where we reside. This is how we think about things. So critical thinking, right? Taking information, logically thinking about things that all takes place in the frontal lobe. Here's the unconscious mind distinction is that the unconscious mind I would submit is. Drastically more powerful. I like to think about it as the mind in itself as a glacier. We've all seen those images of a glacier and the underwater portion of it being massively larger. So like a 90 to 10% split. Well, the 10% above the water that we see from above the surface, that would be our conscious mind, and while it is incredibly powerful. All the things that take place under the surface is the unconscious mind. So another way for like entrepreneurials or tech type people I think about it like an operating system being the unconscious mind, whereas an app would be the conscious mind. So the conscious mind, you can focus very precisely, an app that you open for traveling on a plane, right? It does this one thing specifically very well. And you can switch to a different app. You can focus on something else. You could focus on your banking info or a social media app or whatever it is. And you can do that one thing at a time with a great deal of efficacy. Simultaneously, the operating system or our unconscious mind is always running in the background. And in truth, what ends up happening every time we update our phones and we see that there's a new operating system. Well, the apps have to be updated and they have to change to work with that new system. So the unconscious mind, well, let's understand a little bit of what it is, right? Well, number one there's a few primary directives, if you will, of the unconscious mind. Number one is to keep us safe and keep us alive, right? We evolved whether you believe in creationism or creationism or evolution which I believe in both, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Those things. Have to take place regardless. So for example, like as we're sitting here, I'm not thinking about, okay, I have to breathe in, I have to breathe out, I have to breathe in, I have to breathe out, that'd be exhausting, but that's taking place automatically. Same thing with digesting food, with my heart beating, if I get a paper cut, I'm not sitting there going, heal, come on, heal. Like I ha it just happens automatically. And yet something neurologically has to control these processes. And I submit that's the unconscious mind. So the unconscious mind has a map of the body in its current shape, and it has an idea of what the perfect health for the body could be. So it takes care of all of our automated systems, if you will, and that's an incredibly powerful thing. It also controls all of our beliefs, right? So if you learn something, if I ask you what your name is, you don't have to think about what your name is. It's something that you've learned, right? How many degrees are in a 90 degree angle, right? And everybody here would say, Oh, well, 90 degrees. Okay, well, at some point you learned that and you're not holding onto that consciously all the time, every day. And so recalling that information, it's learned and it's installed at the unconscious level, meaning that anything you've learned, anything that you remember, including memories, experiences, information that you've retained is all stored unconsciously. And then it's the job of your conscious mind. Okay. To recall that information upon command, and it's therefore the job of the unconscious to present it to you. And so for processing or for utilization consciously and so effectively, the unconscious mind is incredibly powerful, and it's something that having a deeper understanding of can give us the ability to then affect what I call that filter system. And we can begin to understand some of those filters. So, for example Your unconscious mind is where you store things like values or your morality, right? And when I say morality, I don't mean social morality, like right and wrong and those type of things. It's morality unconsciously is crucially the morality that you were taught. and accepted. So if you accepted, if you were taught as a young child that stealing is wrong, well, that's probably a good thing. I think we'd agree. And at the same time that was installed unconsciously. So now that belief or that decision is within you unconsciously and that Is one of the filters that you will process the world through. So if, somebody, like, I've worked with some clients who had some very rough upbringings and had more of a perspective of survival. And so doing things that maybe some folks would consider unethical or stealing or. Questionable behaviors can seem totally acceptable because they have the belief that survival is more important than honesty, let's say. I'm not commenting on whether that's right or wrong. It's just an understanding of what may be taking place neurologically for that person. So understanding that these beliefs and these values, right? Like if you were again, if you were taught and accepted that loyalty is a good value that's something that's going to affect the decisions that you make in any context of your life. So something that happens to you're going to filter it through the value of loyalty and through the belief that honesty and honesty is good and stealing is wrong. You will filter it through all of those filters, and that will affect the decision that you make in whatever the context may be. So the real goal here is to understand the unconscious mind is incredibly powerful and it gets programmed. Sometimes with intention and sometimes completely unintentionally. So I'll give an example. There was a case of a not one of my clients, but there was a case of somebody that I know who worked with a woman that she had, she'd been very successful as an entrepreneur. She was, seven, eight figures a year and just for some reason could not hold onto money. And that was what she wanted to work on. She's like, I make plenty of money, but I always spend it. And I think, I imagine there's probably some people listening right now that have been in that scenario. And so what she was able to ascertain with some coaching and some question asking and some digging was that when she was. A young girl, I think five years old, something like that. She got a birthday card from her grandmother and this lady was, 65, 70 years old or something like that. So this was years ago, decades ago, and her grandmother had given her 5 for her birthday and the birthday card. And 60 years ago, that was a really big deal. And so even as a kid now, it's like, Oh my God, I have all the money in the world. So she basically was excited because she had this 5 bill that she could do whatever she wanted with. And now her parents wanted to instill in her a value of giving. And so what her parents said, well, oh honey, that's so great. But you know, good people. Will give away the things that they don't require and the things that they don't need to take care of other people. And so they're trying to teach her a good lesson, but the way that she internalized this was that to be a good person, she had to give away her resources. She had to give away her money. And so her parents obviously didn't intend for that to happen. But the way that manifested later in life was the decision. And then the corresponding belief after the fact came that to be a good person, you had to give resources away. And so this manifested in, she helped a bunch of other people start their businesses. She would invest in things that she maybe didn't necessarily believe in but believed in the person. And so she didn't really want to hang on to money. She would always find something to do with it that she felt was beneficial. And so therefore we, they were able to identify. That this belief is truly what was running her lack of ability to hang on to that, to those finances. And so I love that because identifying that and then shifting that filter first of all thanking your unconscious mind Like literally saying to yourself. Thank you unconscious mind. I understand that you did this was installed to protect me And it's a very, it's a beautiful thing. Simultaneously, it's no longer serving us and we would be even more able to help and be able to be a good person while retaining resources. And so making that shift was able to radically alter her ability to hang onto resources, and then of course, spend them in a very positive manner in other avenues and other directions. So that's one example of how important it can be and how effective that can be.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

I think what you spoke to has also been demonstrated by people like Dr. Joe Dispenza and other people in that field who are proponents of working with the unconscious mind. Dispenza has this His own personal story of how he almost miraculously healed his body through visualization and just really digging in and getting really deep in the unconscious mind. Because, as you said, the unconscious mind is what, What moves the body and what regulates the automatic aspects of our body like healing and breathing and different parts of the autonomic nervous system. is another person who comes to mind who is really a proponent of the understanding that the majority of our behaviors are driven by our unconscious beliefs. And, we're not thinking about all the little things that we're doing to that are leading to the results that we're getting our in our lives or lack thereof, but we're doing them anyway and on repeat and. Those are the first two people that I think of when we start to have conversations about the unconscious mind. If anybody wants to learn more or, dive deeper into this, Joe Dispenza and Bruce Lipton are incredible resources and sources of inspiration, and they've got a ton of case studies and evidence to back up the things that TJ is talking about.

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Let's uh, if it's okay, let's do this. I want to discuss maybe a little bit what the unconscious mind is. And so, so it is, it has prime directives, right? We know that it's there for like evolutionarily, we know that our unconscious mind is there to protect us and to keep us alive, which is therefore why we gravitate towards things that are comfortable and why we avoid things that are uncomfortable or unknown. So going into something you've never done before is always. Significantly less comfortable than staying in something that is comfortable. And a big reason for this is because no matter how detrimental the behavior might be, if we're still here and we're still alive, unconsciously, we know that this behavior has kept us alive to this point, and therefore it's basically trying to protect us. So if we understand that the unconscious mind is there for our protection, we also understand that it has a number of other prime directives. Number one, it stores memories. Right? Again, we're not consciously walking around thinking about all the experiences and memories we've had. Those are stored unconsciously. It organizes those memories. Generally, it does so through through time. Sometimes it can do it based on emotion, but it stores those memories as well. We also know that it's the exclusive domain of emotion. Now, how do we know this? Because some of these are pretty big statements, which I feel generally are common sense and usually resonate with people. But when there's scientific evidence to back it up, I think it's even more valuable. So Yeah. Yeah. The unconscious mind is the exclusive domain of emotions. How do we know this? Well, with an EEG. Which is a test that basically puts a bunch of electrode sensors on the head and then can electrically measure where activities taking place within the brain. When you ask someone to solve a math problem, or to think about something consciously, like, rationally, like, like, explain how this happens, whether it's a scientific process or whatever. When you're doing things consciously in the frontal lobe, we can see on that E. G. Test. We can see that in the frontal lobe, everything lights up and we get all kinds of neurological activity, neurons firing and just going crazy. But when you ask somebody something about like, can you think about what it feels like to be loved? Can you think about the last time you were angry? Can you think about, the last time that you felt powerful or that you felt unstoppable? These emotions take place in different portions of the brain. Oftentimes it's in the hippocampus and some of the the other areas in the rear part of the head. And so we can actually see on that test, on those screens where those things take place. And so we know that emotions and critical thinking take place in different portions of the brain. So I submit that the unconscious mind. Is the exclusive domain of emotions because I've never had to think consciously about loving my daughter or about loving my wife, right? I don't have to think about, I don't think when someone cuts me off in traffic and I get frustrated about it, I don't think, man, I should be angry about this. I just feel it. So we know that the unconscious mind controls our emotions, and that's the only place that they take place. It also represses memories with unresolved negative emotion. The unconscious mind may keep those experiences or memories repressed until such a time it feels they can be resolved, which is why sometimes when you're doing really well in life and something's going well for you, whether you're making more money or your business, you had a win at home and your business is doing well, you had a win at home with the family, what have you. Some weird thought might come of you. Where did that come from? Well, maybe it's because you're in a positive place and your unconscious mind goes, Okay, you're in a position to be able to resolve this repressed memory that you haven't thought about in years. So it can present it to you when it feels that it's, you're in a position to be able to resolve those negative emotions or repressed memories. Again, we talked about it runs the body, right? So we know that unconsciously controls all the functions of our body automatically. Can you think about breathing consciously? Absolutely. And that's super, super important when you're doing things like meditation or breath work. But in truthfully, like you see some of these the Buddhist monks who like back during the Vietnam war were able to literally light themselves on fire and sit. Perfectly still until there was nothing left. I mean, it's tragic and sad to think about. And simultaneously, I find it incredible that these individuals were able to have such conscious and unconscious control over their minds and over their bodies. That demonstrates how powerful the unconscious mind can really be. We know it preserves the body. It does what it can to protect us. Right? So it's a highly moral being. And again, the moral morality, excuse me, being. The morality that you accepted, not necessarily what's culturally agreed on to be moral. It enjoys serving, right? So I like to think about the unconscious mind is like a dog, right? Or a very young child. It wants to please you. It wants to do things well, such that your life is a better place, a better, safer place for your prosperity. However, it needs clear instructions to follow. You can't say, you can't ask it something vague. You have to be very precise with what it, what you desire from it. We know that it controls and maintains perception. So, some people may have heard the term perception is projection, meaning that to perceive something, we have to have that present within us. We don't know what we don't know. So what that means is if you're having a conversation with a client and you have a feeling about this client, like, man, this person might be dishonest. Well, you have to know what being dishonest is. Therefore you have to be capable, not that you are, but you have to be capable of being dishonest to perceive somebody's dishonesty. If you never learned what lying was, I forget what that movie was in the early two thousands were like, nobody could lie. But if you've never known what a lie is, you wouldn't have any idea that someone could be lying to you. So again, the perception is projection is just a way to say that, If you perceive something from someone else, you have to have that present within you already. So being aware of that and going, Oh man, this, okay, this bothers me. Well, I know it bothers me because it's in me already. Those are all controlled by the unconscious as well. It maintains instincts and generates habits. Habits are fascinating. There's a wonderful book. Charles, Dr. Charles Duhigg wrote which is, Oh, gosh, I'm blanking on the title. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. And he discusses there's a lot of folks have heard the story of 10 Second Tom, the guy that had a brain injury to his frontal cortex and wasn't able to remember things, new information beyond about 10 seconds. So he'd continually introduce himself to people. Hey, I'm Tom. Like have a little conversation and be like, Oh, Hey, nice to meet you. I'm Tom. That. What's amazing about his story is that even though he had this inability to create new memories, the habits that he had were still deeply installed at the unconscious level. So, for example, he was still able every day to go, even though he couldn't remember, anything new. He was still able to go to the kitchen and to reach up into the cabinet, grab the peanut butter, jelly and bread and make himself a sandwich every single day because it was the habit that he had done for years. One day he walks out of his house and disappears and his wife at the time, of course, is terrified because where did he go? And he's never gonna find his way home. And like two hours later, after the police have been looking for him, he just strolls right back in the front door. Because, well, it turns out for several years, for like 20 years or whatever, he'd walked this same pathway around his neighborhood, and so, consciously, he couldn't do that, but because it was a habit that he had installed unconsciously, he was able to just go out and then found his way home perfectly. So, again, just demonstration that the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind is pretty profound. It's important that we remind folks that to install a habit, we need to have repetition. And there's a lot of different data on this. Some people say it's two weeks. I've heard other things like 60 to 70 times for a habit to be installed. I don't really subscribe to any specific number because I think it depends on the habit specifically. That's like the more in, the more detailed the habit, the more repetition is required. The point is the more often and regularly you do something, The more habitual it becomes, and the stronger it gets installed at that unconscious level. One of the things that I think makes us human beings is that the unconscious mind is programmed to always seek more. The unconscious is always programmed to seek more. And what that means is, so from the sake of, or from the perspective of like entrepreneurialism, where we hear about these millionaires and billionaires and, and the greed thing of humanity, like, Largely, I attribute that to the unconscious mind, meaning that, okay, well, we as the plebeians of the world, right, we might think that, oh, if you're making a million dollars a year, a billion dollars a year that's what more could you possibly need? And sure, there's a lot of truth to that. Simultaneously, that person's unconscious mind is still Programmed to search for more. And so it's not necessarily an evil thing. It's not good or bad. It's just that our unconscious always looks for more, whether that be resources or love or anything, right. We're always looking for more. We do know that like, again, I referenced my daughter, right. Our unconscious and conscious minds work best when they're a whole integrated unit, meaning that they can bounce ideas off one another and work together versus trying to work against each other, which is largely what our society does. As human beings, when we disintegrate our conscious and unconscious minds it is symbolic, which is why I pay very close attention to the music. I listen to the movies. I watch any TV shows, the things that I read because we are receiving symbolism constantly, whether or not we recognize it consciously. And then It takes everything personally, which again is the basis of perception is projection. It works on the principle of least effort, meaning like just like water or electricity, always find the path of least resistance. So does your unconscious mind. And then crucially, this is my favorite one, which is that the unconscious mind cannot process a negative. The unconscious mind cannot process a negative. What do I mean by that? Well, what I'm here to suggest is that when somebody says the same thing, two different ways, one way is significantly more powerful. If you say I'm tired of being broke, that is significantly less powerful than saying I want to be wealthy. So it's not because necessarily your goal is any different, but what's taking place neurologically is that when you say, I don't want to be broke, what your unconscious mind is, it doesn't hear the don't, it just hears broke. And so it focuses on the lack, it focuses on the negative thing. So if you change that, Terminology. If you change your verbiage to say, I want to be wealthy. I want to be rich. I want to be fantastically wealthy. It doesn't matter, right? Like, if you change it to what you desire, then that's what your unconscious mind hears. So that's what it will begin focusing on. Then this, of course, takes place over time, right? The more consistent you get with it, the more habitual it becomes, the easier it is for your unconscious mind to present you examples that yes, this is something that I desire. And so that's why, like, when we hear things say it as if now, right? Like. If you're out of shape and you want to get in shape, say, I love going to the gym. I'm a gym rat. I don't care if you're 350 pounds. If you say I'm a gym rat and you love going to the gym and that's your thing, that's far more powerful than like, I don't want to be fat anymore. So again, doesn't process a negative, which means we just want to be careful with how we verbalize things. And the evidence for this is actually pretty simple. So if I ask the audience, yeah, If I say something like, don't think about a cheetah, immediately, everybody, even if just for a split second, because I said the word cheetah, somebody, everybody that listens to this is going to have an image or going to have a feeling or a thought around a cheetah. But what did I say? I said, don't think about it. So, of course, what I'm doing is if I say, think about an elephant, then you're going to think about an elephant. But if I say, don't think about an elephant, you're still going to think about an elephant. So, again, it's just the idea that. The unconscious mind does not process negative. So you want to be very careful with with what we do. And so to take some of that information and really just summarize that the unconscious mind controls so much more than the conscious mind. There was a study, I believe, from the University of Pennsylvania that broke down how we receive data. Consciously and unconsciously. And so the numbers I don't really subscribe to, I think they're less important than the idea here, but I'll reference their specific numbers. They said that through our five senses again, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. So through our five senses, we take in roughly five, excuse me, 11 million bits of information per second. Now, that's a fantastic amount of information. Every second. If each bit of data was a toothpick, we've got a dump truck full of toothpicks every second that we process. And so what's happening is, as I'm sitting here with you, I know that behind me there are windows with light coming in. I know that the wall color is white. I know that you've got a beautiful picture of an owl, like owl eyes on the wall behind you, right? So there's all this data that I'm receiving. And this is just visually, of course, yeah. And yet I'm not consciously processing all of that. It's just I get it to come in. And then my mind, my unconscious mind takes 126 bits of that information every second and presents it to my conscious mind to process. So from 11 million to 126, that's a phenomenal amount of data that just gets thrown out. And how do we do this? Well, we do this through the processes of deletion. distortion and generalization. And so most of the information that comes in, if we've got a dump truck full of toothpicks that are the data. We're basically getting rid of all of them. We're grabbing a handful of information, a handful of toothpicks and getting rid of the rest every second. So we're deleting the vast majority of it because it's not relevant to the current conversation or to the current situation that we're in. There's also distortion, meaning that if you see something out of the corner of your eyes, you're on a hike. And you think there's a great story of a guy who like saw a snake and freaked out. Turns out it was just a piece of rope. Well, he had a reaction to it because his unconscious mind said that looks like a snake. So it distorted this information, even though it was a rope, it distorted it to keep him safe. And it told him it was a snake. So it was doing its best to protect him, distorting that information. And then, of course, generalization. This is something that we all do. And I'm not talking about like, bigoted generalization, right? I'm talking about in the sense of you take some information and you say, okay, this looks like this. So I'm just going to generalize that data and apply the same rules to as something else that I already am familiar with. So our unconscious mind does that work. Does the work of selecting those 126 bits of information every second out of a dump truck of them. So the ability for the unconscious mind to process data far outweighs our conscious ability to process that data. And so we I like to look at this as the reticular activating system. And the reticular activating system, or RAS, is that process of deletion, distortion, and generalization. So an example here is, for your audience, When you bought a new car, right? Or your first car, whatever it is. You probably all of a sudden noticed as you're driving it around, you saw that same car everywhere else, right? You started seeing it like, Oh there's the Subaru or there's my Ford or whatever it is. You saw that more often. Well, is it because all of a sudden everyone else went and bought that same car and there's suddenly more of them out on the road? Or is it just because it's an important. Important piece of data for you currently.'cause you just went through the process of buying that vehicle and now your unconscious mind is saying, Hey, this is important data for you, so I'm going to show you all of those vehicles that are drawing, that are driving around. So it's showing you those vehicles on the road more so than it would have if you hadn't thought about it. Right. So like the jeep wave, I'm a jeep guy. I have a couple of jeeps. So when I'm driving around, I see jeeps and I wave. But then what's funny is I'll be in like my work van or my truck and I'll catch myself waving at a jeep even though I'm not in my jeep because I'm used to doing that. So it's again, it's just your unconscious mind's way of taking that in that massive amount of information coming in. And deciding which information to present to us to process consciously. So this is a crucial part of what the unconscious mind does for us every single day, whether we're aware of it or not.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

Yeah, so that was a lot um, a very thorough uh, explanation of the unconscious mind. And I really appreciate that. I think that helps to give some context to what we were talking about, the, just the power of the unconscious mind and the fact that. The 90 percent of the iceberg that's underwater, like, there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we're not consciously aware of that's, that is affecting the outcomes in our lives and the direction of our lives, our actions, pretty much everything in our lives is being in a large capacity being directed by the unconscious mind. And I think that's really important for people to understand. And, you went through a lot of detail there in, in breaking down all the different areas that the unconscious mind is potentially in control of and, taking care of for us. And On one hand, it's important that all these processes are being managed by some system, because consciously, yeah, we wouldn't be able to function in society as human beings as we know it if we were having to consciously manage all these different aspects of self, like the retrieval of memories or the functions of our body that are automatic or, the storage of data, like all that stuff, it's really a blessing and a miracle in a way that it's, that it happens just almost on autopilot and that allows us to to have to think and to have, conscious desires and to be able to navigate our lives In a way, that's, as you said, different from the animal kingdom. A lot of what jumping back to that, all the things that you talked about, I think the difference between an animal and a human is the difference in unconscious and conscious behavior. The animals, they may exhibit just traces of conscious behavior from time to time, but by and large, they are entirely unconscious beings. Not to say that there's not value in them or that they don't have feelings or any of that, but it's just a different way of interacting with the world and with reality as a whole. So that's, I really appreciate your taking the time to go through and give a really detailed explanation of that. Because I believe just understanding that on a Even a very surface level is really powerful and gives proof and is a lot of really solid evidence for the fact that, we are largely unconscious beings and knowing that having that understanding, as you alluded to in the very beginning, means that, I am in control of my outcome. I may, I might not be consciously aware that I am in control of my outcome, or I may not consciously remember the thing that happened when I was four or five. That's, that keeps leading me into disastrous relationships or that keeps leading me into the situation of of overworking until burnout. but there is something inside of me that is responsible for the outcomes that I'm experiencing in my life, positive or negative. And when we start to have that understanding and that realization, like, I am in control for better or worse of the things that are happening in my life. Only then, when you come to that point and, make that decision and make that agreement like I, I am responsible for my circumstances, only then can you start to do something about it. And, and I'm, And I'm certain that pretty much everybody watching this, you can pinpoint some area in your life or there's some reoccurring situation or something, whether it's a personal or, With your business, maybe you're not getting the retreat bookings that you're looking for, or, you know, you know, you've got an awesome product, but you're just, you haven't been able to get on social media and get out there and market yourself the way that you, that, you know, that you should, or you shy away from sales conversations because there's a, something about money makes you uncomfortable. Whatever the situation is, when we start to understand that. Those things, whatever it is, a result of unconscious belief that we're harboring inside of ourselves. Only then can we start to make changes. And I think that's, on one hand, it's, it can, it may feel daunting and like, okay, what do I even begin? And on the other hand, it's, I think there's a sense of liberation when you start to really embrace that and start to. start to lean into the situations where, okay, I'm feeling uncomfortable here and I'm wanting to pick up my phone and I'm wanting to start scrolling or I'm wanting to procrastinate or, I'm, I have an opportunity to get into a bunch of, in front of a bunch of people. And that's, you know, that's that, that feeling of shrinking away, like those things can crop up. Well, yeah. What do you do? when you understand that it's really has nothing to do or very little to do with the external environment and really the external environment, whatever is happening is triggering something inside of you that's been latent and is running like a program that's running behind the scenes. When you start to shift your. Your belief and your perspective on like on triggers and what's going on inside of you as opposed to what's going on outside of you. Then you can start to change your behaviors, change your patterns, make intentionally start to reshape your beliefs and reshape your habitual patterns. So I'm curious Some of the techniques and I know you and I know a lot of different techniques and they are, some of them are more in depth than others. Some of them are very potentially intense. But what are some basic steps that people can start to take in their everyday lives from moment to moment when they feel like they're ready to and want to make changes how can someone use their conscious mind to make changes in their unconscious mind such that it's, it allows them to have a different reality and a different experience of

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

yeah, absolutely. So I've got two techniques that I'd like to share. The, these are the real simple and simultaneously very effective techniques that I share with pretty much all of my clients. It's something that, that honestly anybody can do. So the first one is real simple. So. We talked about the reticular activating system and its role in deciding which of the massive amount of information coming in is relevant to process. So we can actually take control of that reticular activating system by specifically showing our unconscious mind what data we desire to be presented with. So what I have people do most of the time I do it with gratitude. But there's also sometimes there's people that are entrepreneurs are already very grateful and they don't feel that's a value for them. So you can apply this to whatever you want. So maybe he's an entrepreneur. You want to see more opportunities. You want to find more opportunities to grow your business or to meet people. Whatever it may be, if you want to increase something in your life. What you want to do is basically every single day, jot down. I like to do it in the evenings, but it really doesn't matter. Give yourself some accountability with a friend, with a partner, with a business partner, husband, spouse, wife, doesn't matter. Point being every day, find three examples of what it is that you want to see more of. So if it's gratitude. Every day I want somebody to write down three examples of things that happened to them that day that they're grateful for and over the course of about 2 to 3 weeks. And of course, the more you do it, the more habitual becomes, but about 2 to 3 weeks, then suddenly you'll start noticing throughout the course of the day, like, oh, I'm really grateful for that thing that just happened instead of having to think about it at the end of the day, because what you're doing is at the end of the day, you're showing your unconscious mind. Okay, we're gonna relive this day and find three or more examples for things that I'm grateful for. right? Whatever it is like, Oh, I had a beautiful moment with my wife. She told me she's very grateful for me and that she appreciates how hard I'm working for our family. Um, you know, I had a client write me a letter and say, Thank you. We really appreciate you made a huge impact in my life. I had to get my truck serviced and they were able to squeeze me. And even though they're booked out for months, whatever it is, right? But you take those three examples every day and you really Write them down. Crucially. I'm not, I don't mean like in a phone app. I mean, write them down on a piece of paper. We do know scientifically there's huge benefits to physically writing something down because you're combining thought and physical activity. So write them down every day. If it's an opportunity, if you want to see more opportunities be presented to you. So what you do is you write down three opportunities that presented themselves to you that day. And it can be minuscule. You'd be like, Well, you know what? I had five extra minutes between meetings. So I had an opportunity to post something on instagram for my clients, or I had an opportunity to send an email. I wasn't planning on sending right. Those opportunities. The more you present those things, the more consistently you do that day to day. The more your unconscious will give you that data going forward throughout the course of your day. So you see them as the opportunities they are, or so you're grateful for them in the moment. So again, picking the thing you want to be conscious of throughout the day, the data that you want your unconscious to show you in the moment, write it down three of them or more every single night. And then throughout the course of like two to three weeks, you'll start seeing them more and more. cropping up to you. That's your unconscious mind showing you those things intentionally. So that's a way you can basically put some bumpers up like at a bowling alley, and you can say, Hey, I want you to guide me to this destination and it will eventually get you there. You may not get a strike every time, but you're getting the ball down the way. So that's a real easy one. Just write down three things that you desire to see more of write down three examples of them every evening after your day's over. And then the other one is real simple. This is what I call my four steps to emotional bedrock so there's four questions that I really like, and I know you're familiar with these, so I'll go through them fairly quickly, but I want to be precise about these. So there's a question that I love asking people. It's one of my favorite questions ever. When you hear yourself or when you hear someone around you make a statement, That demonstrates a belief that they hold. The one that I always use is I'm bad at math. Okay. Ask yourself this question. When did I decide that? When did I decide that? The reason that this question is so important and so powerful is because. It allows you first of all, it empowers you, right? So it's not asking why just allows for a bunch of mental masturbation and doesn't really put any bumpers up. You can just go crazy and find yourself in the middle of nowhere. So why is a dangerous question? Because maybe not dangerous, but it's a less effective question to ask. When did I decide that puts the power in your court? Because you're saying unconsciously what you're receiving is I made a decision. Okay. Which is true. So you're asking yourself, when did I decide that I was bad at math and trust the answer that comes if you think about some, in my case, for example, it was like this class in third grade where my teacher was like, you're so much smarter than this. Like you, you could, you, you really could do better at this, but I don't know if you're ever going to be good at math. And so I was like, well, I'm just not good at math. And that decision protected me from feeling guilty about not doing good at math. So it kept me safe, but it's no longer serving me at this stage of my life. So when did I decide that? Someone makes a statement about themselves or you make a statement about yourself, right? So we, to, to hearken back a little bit to our earlier conversation, which was like, Oh, it's really hard to find employees. When did I decide that? Well, I saw all the evidence and I interviewed a thousand people to find two good ones. And, it was a really like, Okay, fine. But you still made the decision that it's hard to find people so you can make a different decision. So it's a non accusatory statement, meaning that it empowers you to make a different decision. So that's the first question. When did I decide that once you trust the answer that comes immediately? The crucial point in this process is to trust what pops up like immediately. You'll have just like that cheetah popped up for just a moment. Whatever comes up immediately. That's the answer you want to trust. You don't need to think about it and resonate on it. It's just what comes up immediately, because that's how the unconscious mind works. The unconscious doesn't think it just presents. So the answer you get from that, you take that answer and you say, okay, well, it was third grade when Miss Ballentine told me I was never going to be good at math or whatever it was, right? Okay. Well, what was the purpose? The second question, what's the purpose of this belief. And then again, trusting what comes up immediately. Well, it was for me, it was protection because it kept me from feeling guilty. It was to protect me from the guilt. Okay. So protection is the purpose. Well, what's, here's the third question. What's the higher intention of protection? Well, the higher intention of protection, and maybe it's safety, maybe it's survival whatever it is that pops up for you. And then of course, my personal favorite, once you Dig down a little bit and you find out what's going on underneath it. When you get to a difficult point where you're not sure if there's anything else underneath it, here's the question you want to ask yourself. What could I possibly believe about myself such that I feel that I need protection? What could I possibly believe about myself such that I need safety? Right? The belief about yourself. The answer that you get from that is generally when you're going to have that big moment of like, Oh my God. And oftentimes in this scenario, it's going to be something along the lines of, well, I believe that I'm not good enough or I believe that I'm not worthy or I believe that, whatever it is, right? So I had a client who really struggled with taking care of herself. She's a phenomenal mother and husband. She's really taking care of the people around her very well, and she's sacrificed herself to do it. And so when digging down, asking these few questions, I You know, she gets to this point and said, What could you possibly believe about yourself such that you feel you have to take care of other people before yourself? And she said, like through tears, mind you, tears are a really great indication that you're getting to good a good place through tears. She said, Well, that it's I'm just not. I'm not worthy of taking care of myself. I'm not good enough. And so that's when those things start to come out and identifying that is extremely uncomfortable, especially if you're doing it with another person. If you're doing it with yourself and you're being honest, especially if you're willing to look yourself in the mirror as you do it, when you find yourself darting away from your own gaze, that means you're uncomfortable. And that's a good thing. Because when you trust what comes up, if it's not worthy or if it's that, I'm selfish or I'm lazy or whatever that thing that comes up for you is, you know that to be true because you're giving it to yourself. So it's a gift. And then what I like to suggest that people do is say, thank you, unconscious mind, like literally thank your unconscious mind for giving you that answer because a, you know, it's true because it came from you. And you cannot lie to yourself, no matter how hard you try. You can fool yourself. You can try to believe other things, but deep in your unconscious, you know, what's true. So when that truth comes up, accept it and say, thank you for giving me that. What lessons do I need to learn to be able to release that? And that gives you the opportunity to not only identify the symptom, but now you've started at the symptom or the presenting problem. You've asked, when did I decide that? What's the higher purpose of this? What's the higher intention of this and what could, or what must I believe about myself such that. I require protection. I require safety, whatever it is. You follow that strategy and you get down to a core belief or a core value or something deep within you, a decision that you've made about yourself. And suddenly that gives you the opportunity to know yourself at a far deeper level and you can be honest with yourself. And now you can start doing real work. So instead of wondering you. Why do I not send invoices? Why do I not collect on invoices? Why do I procrastinate? I know what I need to do. I worked with Ian. He gave me a list of marketing things to do, but I'm just not fucking doing them. And so if you have this suddenly realization, sudden realization of like, Oh, this is why this is the reason that I'm not doing these things. Then you can work on that thing. And that will be profoundly more impactive than just saying, okay, tomorrow, I'm going to do it tomorrow. I start tomorrow, right? Those four questions. Once again, when did I decide that? What's the higher purpose of this? What's the higher intention of that previous answer? And then what could or what must I believe about myself such that I require this higher intention? And so those questions by themselves, along with doing that daily gratitude or opportunity or whatever the thing is you want to see more of in your life. Along with doing that, I find those to be the simplest and yet most effective methods to digging down to that bedrock and really making progress.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

Thank you for sharing that. I think the one thing that's really impactful and important to keep in mind, something that you touched on earlier, is that the unconscious mind is, it only ever works for our good. It may not perceive, these decisions that, that maybe were made when we were very young, or these limiting beliefs that we're, that we may be holding on to, or at one point in time, those beliefs were installed or we made that decision as a way to, to protect ourselves or it was the best option that we had.

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Yeah, absolutely.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

think about our, upbringings and the environments we were in, like how many people as adults are in the exact same environments we were in as when we were children. So if you think back to them, if you go back to those situations and take an honest look at the situation and like what was happening there. Maybe it did make sense and maybe it does on some level, you can see how a limiting belief like I'm not worthy or money doesn't grow on trees or, if I step out of line then I'm going to be all alone or if I don't just go with the flow, whatever it is, if you really put yourself back in those shoes and have that understanding that, everything that happened was for my, in that moment in the past, everything that happened had a deeper purpose of protecting me or it was for my greatest good in that situation. The thing is, I'm still maintaining that belief 30, 40, 50 years later, and it no longer applies to my current situation. And in fact, That belief that was made way back when, that I'm still believing in, that's still informing my actions, it's actually now, it's holding me back. Where at one point in time, it was what I needed to survive and to do the best that I could, but now it's, it's actually performing a different function. It's holding me back rather than, than keeping

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

on and it's having unintended consequences, right? And I completely agree with you in that. Yes, it was. It was there for a positive reason and understanding that and accepting that makes it so much easier to bring to reintegrate the conscious and unconscious minds because you begin to love the unconscious mind. It's no longer the frustration with why don't I do this? It's having an understanding of Oh, this is what's going on. Like, thank you. And what if we made a change? And crucially, I think for people that are, hosting events or working with clients these are things that you can, as you do yourself and you become more familiar with, you can integrate these with clients with events, right? So a great one. And this is something that a good friend of mine does in his events now. Oftentimes, if you're going to spend a bunch of money on going to an event between travel and the cost of the event and, bookings and all those things, sometimes, we get buyer's remorse. That's a real thing. And so if you're going to spend, let's say, I don't know, 10, 000 to go to an event that's a few days long, right? Well, if you buy that six months before the event, you have six months to ruminate on whether or not that's a good decision. So an easy thing to do is to say. All right. You have some homework before you get to the event. So a month before you get to the event, you can start doing this gratitude practice every night or, whatever it may be. But have them do that reticular activating system adjustment of writing down three or more things every evening. And so you can preempt it. They can start to see changes much more quickly before they even get to an event and have a significant shift before they even arrive. And then, of course, how those questions work, and at the same time, ev So sometimes that order i the way they need to go i do it with yourself and w People that are willing to go deep and be vulnerable and raw with you, you get comfortable with asking those questions and when to ask them. And so you can then do that at the event with people. And that can be really empowering, especially like when I'm presenting, I love doing that. Someone will ask me a question and they'll say something like, well, I just, my industry is this can't be done in my industry. And I'm like, okay, well, when did you decide that? And I'll pause my, Okay. Presentation to spend time with that individual and ask those questions and dig down to that deeper level because it's very quick. You do in a matter of minutes. And so you get that person down to a level and then everyone else at the event gets to witness the effect that has and therefore then provides another evidence or a piece of evidence for their procedure of like, Oh, this is really powerful. And so it can open up your ability to host an event where people are significantly more open because if you give someone evidence that what you're doing is valuable before they even show up, you've already satisfied a portion or maybe even all of their evidence procedures so that they're showing up with value already ascertained and achieved and then they get to the event and they're just like, let's do this. Let's go. So we found that his events since he started doing that are, he has even higher, greater engagement from everybody at the events and the people who show up seem to get even significantly better results as well. So, that's just a tangible way that you can include that for someone who's doing an event.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

That's super powerful. And, so I've been reading a lot about statistics around the travel industry and wellness, tourism, retreat business. And one of the things since COVID that has really increased is the, incorporation of and success of mindfulness retreats and people who are incorporating a component of mindfulness because since COVID, there's been a tangible shift in the understanding around mental health. I think people, there's a lot of people teetering on the edge before COVID hit. And then when it did, a lot was exposed culturally. In regards to, the, just different issues that people are dealing with, whether it's stress or anxiety and having some of the understandings that you talked about, TJ or bringing in somebody specifically like you to speak at an event and address different aspects of mindfulness and the unconscious mind, helping give participants a much more, A deeper and much more nuanced understanding of this thing that we all is part of our experience. It's an intrinsic part of the human experience. The interplay between the conscious and the unconscious mind. We all have an unconscious mind and it functions largely the same way for everybody. Yet so few people really have a functional understanding of what it's doing and why it's doing it and how to potentially start to work with it in a way that's going to benefit us or get us to the results that we want in life. So incorporating, bringing somebody like you in or, Like you said, even beforehand, starting to plant seeds preemptively so that when people get to the event there, they're primed and they're ready and that You can start to crack the door open and most retreats are transformational and you're already breaking a person out of their comfort zone for the most part. And, it's a, it's fertile ground to, to be able to elicit a really impactful change in somebody and being able to lead with some of these practices and some of the information that you talked about. And. Just as practitioners having a deeper understanding of the mechanisms and what it takes to be able to get somebody to change and like the underlying structures that are holding up our, that are stored within our unconscious mind but are holding up our conscious life, like knowing that aspect of the psyche in a deep and functional way can massively impact increase the amount of change that you're able to create with your participants and really deliver an experience that's going to have long lasting impact. And, along with that comes repeat bookings, referrals, all the good things.

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, I think we've probably all had a client at some point who like, if let's say you run a marketing company and you give them a strategy, like an X, Y, Z, do this, and then you'll have good results and. They're just not implementing it, right? I think we've all had that client being able to understand what the unconscious is and that person has an unconscious and what might be present for them. I'm not a mind reader, of course, right? But understanding that everybody has an unconscious mind and knowing what could be taking place. for them unconsciously and giving them the tools to be able to change that unconscious without necessarily going into everything we went into about what the unconscious is, etcetera. You're utilizing the unconscious to basically help mold and shape them in a positive direction for them, right? It's very important for us to be aware of that. And I should say, maybe not important, but It's helpful, right? Because then if you see somebody who's got the tools but isn't using them, you can dig a little deeper and you can say, okay, what's keeping them from doing it? And then you can increase your efficacy and you can increase your completion rate and the success that people are having, which ultimately, like you said, to your point, That's when you get repeat bookings and recommendations, and that's when people have the successes, which is the whole goal of what we do. So, yeah I find those two techniques, the four questions to bedrock, as well as the three the three examples each night is very powerful, and they're simple things that anybody can do. So I would highly recommend that everybody start doing those right now. And play with it, just get comfortable with it. Cause then when you start doing it to, to your clients and helping your clients for them, then all of a sudden they're like, wow, this is, that's so much more valuable. I got so much more out of that than I ever anticipated. And that's just a, it's a very beautiful thing.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

Yeah, I agree. And wow, that's, man, this has been such a valuable conversation. A lot of information, a lot of takeaways for people. Thank you, TJ, so much for, you know, Coming on and sharing your expertise

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

You're welcome.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

talking about your experiences. And so as we wind down, I'm curious, like, Where can people get a hold of you? What are you doing? Like, how do you work with people? If anybody is interested in working with you or potentially talking to you about coming to speak at an event, like, yeah,

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

The best thing for me right now, I'm I'm mostly on Instagram is the easiest way to get ahold of me. It's just at TJ Frye, four Oh six Frye is just F R Y no silent E's in there but TJ F R Y four zero six, and that's Instagram. And you can shoot me a DM if you're interested. And I'm on podcasts periodically with a number of other folks as well. So you may see me on there, but yeah, if you have any questions and I love engagement, if people have questions or they want to, they see something that resonates with them. Shoot me a DM. I respond to everybody that reaches out to me cause I enjoy it. And and I love conversation. So if you couldn't tell from this, I like talking. So if you're interested in having a conversation, just reach out, I'd be more than glad to set up a call and and see what we can do for you.

ian_1_12-27-2024_112357:

Awesome. TJ, thank you again so much. This has been super enlightening. Great catching up. Always awesome spending time with you. And thank you everybody for watching and we'll see you in the next one.

tj-fry_1_12-27-2024_102356:

Adios.