Disney Magical Mindset Podcast

You Might Miss This When You Walk Into Disneyland (And Why It Matters)

• Ruben R. Rios • Episode 54

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0:00 | 21:52

What if the key to living the magic is building better boundaries?

In this episode of the Disney Magical Mindset Podcast, learn about the overlooked power of Disneyland’s berm, and how it teaches us to protect our peace, block out distractions, and stop reacting to what we can’t control.

You’ll learn how to build your own “internal Disneyland,” quiet the inner villain voice, and choose how you frame your experiences, no matter what’s happening around you.

✨ Plus, a practical takeaway and a preview of the live online workshop Silence the Villain: The Disneyland Mindset for Becoming the Hero of Your Story, happening Wednesday, January 28 at 4pm PST. Click on the underline link above to sign up! 

If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, discouraged, distracted, or stuck this episode is for you.

Helping you silence the villain in your mind and become the hero of your story!

Ruben :

Hey pals, welcome back to the Disney Magical Mindset Podcast. My name is Ruben, your Disney Magic mentor. And today I've got something really special for you. You see, I know it comes as no surprise that Disneyland is my favorite out of all the Disney parks. And maybe that's a podcast episode for another day where we rank the Disney parks around the world. But even close to home, at least for me, there in Anaheim, we have California Adventure, which is just right across from Disneyland. And I remember just the other day I put a poll in my stories on Instagram and asked the question: Disneyland or California Adventure? And you know already the answer that at least the majority, 90%, took Disneyland over California Adventure. Now, that being said, I want to focus in on my favorite place on Earth because there's something so special that most people don't notice. It's a little piece of magic that Walt Disney intentionally built into the park that we can actually use in our own lives. I want to introduce you to the berm, to the thing that you actually walk under every single time you enter Disneyland or Magic Kingdom or any Disneyland park around the world. There is something about walking under this berm that it doesn't seem like much. It really doesn't. And most of the time, we're not fixated on walking under it because we're just ready to get into Main Street and enjoy our Disney day. But I want you to see that by the end of this episode, you're going to recognize how this 20-foot-high landscaped earthen berm can teach you a powerful, magical mindset life lesson and help you reclaim your power in ways that will show up in your day-to-day life. Because this is what I want for you, and I want that for me. The ability to experience the magic of Disney, the magic of a Disney park, the magic of Disneyland, even without stepping foot into a Disney park. It is possible, and today I'm going to show you how. So if you're ready, come on, let's do this. Here we go. Okay, let's meet at Disneyland, the entrance of Disneyland. We get there, maybe you come in through the buses to get into Disneyland, or you take the tram, the parking structure, but we've made it to the promenade. We're walking through the gates in Disneyland. One of the greatest feelings, isn't it? It's like the best feeling when you know you're there. You've made it and you step through the gates and you enter into this world of tomorrow, of fantasy of yesterday. That famous sign that you see every single time you walk through the berm, all right, to get to Main Street. Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy, and you know it's going to be a great day. It's gonna be amazing. It's the best feeling, isn't it? For you Disney fans, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Now, here's the thing I think we may miss. And I want to give you this insight because it will change your experience at Disneyland, but it will also change your experience when you're not in a Disney park. And it's this because in order to get to Main Street, you have to go through a tunnel. You have to. There's no way around it. Now, you can take the monorail in and uh you can come in that way, right? And come in through Tomorrowland. But if you're coming through the gates, through the entrance of the park, you have to go through a tunnel. You do this every single time. And what most people don't realize is that the tunnels are carved from a densely landscaped berm that's about 20 feet high with the Disneyland Railroad running along the top. And that's really the cool thing, too. When you walk into Disneyland and you see the railroad coming on the top, that's the berm, right? That's the part that it that it comes over. And it's such a special experience when you walk into the park and you get to see that. And I want you to know that this isn't just landscaping. Although the landscapers at Disneyland are amazing, it's just beautiful, right? Not only is it visually amazing at Disneyland and the experience that we get when we're in the park, but isn't it beautiful? The trees, um, when you see the flowers, it's it's quite spectacular. So much to talk about that, but let me come back to this berm because again, I know it doesn't sound like much, and you're thinking to yourself, what a berm? There's magic in a berm? Was Disneyland? Of course there's magic in a berm. And Walt understood something fundamental. What you see shapes what you feel. Woo-hoo! Yes. Come on, Walt. What you see shapes what you feel. That berm was intentional on Walt's part. He intentionally decided that we needed a berm at Disneyland, that when you walked in, there was a story to be told, like you were entering a different world where you were going to get uh to experience this place of fantasy, right? This place of yesterday, uh fantasy and and tomorrow, right? That this is going to be your story that you get to live. And Walt understood the power of blocking the outside world visually, orally, and emotionally. So when you step into Disneyland, what are you doing? You are stepping into a world that's carefully framed to remove distractions, which is why many of you have said over and over again that just simply being in a Disney park just creates this feeling, right? Because what you see shapes what you feel. And for Walt, he didn't want you to see the outside world. You know, he didn't want you to hear the noise that's going on in the city, right? He he he didn't want you to know uh what was happening out there. I mean, even because we have to deal with that every single day of our lives. So he wanted you to come and experience a place where you didn't have to think, at least for the time that you're there, about the outside world. I mean, not really. You know, sometimes it's hard to completely um shut it down or turn it off. But imagine that that Walt wanted guests to enter this land under what Imagineer Herb Ryman described as almost a hypnotic state, fully immersed in the magic, fully present. And this metaphor for life is something so breathtaking. When I learned about this and I began to apply it to my life, it was a game changer. And that's part of the first step to living this magic. That's part of the first things that we need to silence the villain in our mind so we can become the hero of our story. That's how you go from leaving a Disney park to not leaving the magic, the feeling that you experience when you're in a Disney park. Like it is possible to leave, but still feel joy, still be able to block out those things in life that don't bring you joy, that don't make you happy, that you don't simply just only have to walk through the gates, although there's nothing like it, but you can leave with this sense of you're not leaving that feeling. That you get to choose if you want to be happy today. You get to choose if you desire to experience joy today, you get to choose if fear is gonna call your name and you're gonna follow that fear, or you get to choose if you're going to shut that fear down and say, today's the day that I'm gonna make the best decision of my life. Yeah. You have a built-in internal berm. Let's talk about it. So, this berm that Walt gives us at the entrance of Disneyland and really throughout the entire park, right? So it's not just the entrance, but it's really all the way around. The berm is I want you to think of a boundary. Boundaries are important, by the way. We all need boundaries. It's a frame, it's it's a way to decide what gets in and what doesn't. So I want you to think about the power of your internal berm and the ability that you have to block out fear, to block out the doubt, to block out the haters, to block out the comparisons, to block out the noise of what everyone else is doing, right? To to block out that voice that says you're not good enough, to block out that um feeling that you have inside of always thinking about how you messed up or your past or feeling this shame because of what happened, like you know, 20 years ago. I don't know. Like there is this thing that we have, the ability to block out. And I want you to understand that today you can create your own internal Disneyland or internal berm. And you can step into this place fully present every single day, focused on what brings you joy. I'm tired of the fear hijacking our joy. I'm tired of us going through life afraid or going through life, just constantly dwelling on things that don't bring us joy, or constantly being, you know, bitter, or people are angry or upset, and it's just, you know, taking their life out of them. You have the ability today to say, that's not gonna be me. Today I'm gonna choose joy. Today I'm gonna choose to live the magic. Today I'm gonna believe that it's gonna be the best day of my life because I don't know what tomorrow holds. In fact, I don't even know if I'll have tomorrow. Today I'm gonna choose to love fully, to love with everything I have, because today's gonna be a great day, and I'm gonna make the most of this day. Today I'm gonna stop getting caught up in what everyone else is doing and getting so consumed in someone else's highlight reel that I forget about my own highlight reel, or that I focus so much on what's going wrong that I forget about the good things that are going on in my life. I want to share something so powerful at the beginning of this year that is gonna be so important as we continue into this new year. And it's this you can't control what happens to you or what others do or say, but you can control how you frame it, how you react, how you respond. That's your power. Your power is on not trying to control someone else because the moment you try, you give that power away. You can't control someone else's opinion of you. You can't control what someone thinks about you. You can't control people. You just can't. And so when I try to do something that I can't control, I'm essentially giving my power away to something that I need to keep for myself. And the power that you have is your response. It's your berm, it's your frame, it's your boundary, it's your reaction. Have you ever heard uh someone say that actions speak louder than words? And it's true. Our actions do speak louder than words, but our reactions speak louder than either. My goodness. It's our reactions that expose who we truly are. Because you can't control the long lines at Disneyland, you can't control the amount of people that come. You go as we I hear it all the time. It was busy at Disneyland, it was busy at Walt Disney World. It's gonna be busy, it's busy all the time now. Like long gone are the days when you can go to a Disney park and it's just kind of chill. Like those are rare, few and far between, right? I remember back in the day I would go during the week and it was like empty, but like those days, they're just not there anymore. So I can't control the amount of people. I can't control the lines that are long. I can't control that sometimes Peter Penn is 45 minutes long. I can't control it, control it, but I can control my response. I can control my reaction, I can control my boundary, my berm. That's my power. That's what I'm talking about. I can go and I can lose that control and react with anger, frustration. Oh, it's another, it's a big old line, or you know, it's gonna be a bad day, or look what happened, or look what that cast member did. Like I can do all that, but what's that gonna do? I'm not giving that power away. I'm too, I'm holding that for myself. That's my berm. That's my berm. That's my pixie dust, man. And and I'm not willing to give that simply away to lose that joy that I desire to carry every day of my life. Now, hear me, please. I know, let's let's be real for a moment. I know it's easier said than done. Okay. I want to give you that. I want to give myself that because some days, man, that berm is broken. Yeah, some days it's it's hard. Some days it because of just life, man, it's it's not easy. So I recognize that. In fact, you know, uh last week I had a moment for myself. Uh instead of continuing to stay focused on the castle, my castle that I'm building, man, I started looking sideways and seeing what other people are doing, or the invitations that other people are getting to certain events, or the speaking opportunities that I see, you know, friends getting. And I'm just like, man, it's it's hard in that moment when you're working hard and you're giving it everything you've got and you're like, hey, I'm here, right? Have you felt like that before? And in that moment, I get to choose. I could choose to, you know, be frustrated. I could choose to, you know, um, be hurt, or I can choose to be happy, I can choose to embrace it. I can choose to say, I'm not gonna allow that to impact my day. I can choose to look at the good that's going on in my life instead of you know looking at things that I don't have and just embracing, look at all the magic that's going on. Like, you know, do you see the perspective? Do you see the berm? Do you see the power that you have? So, yeah, I know it's it's easier said than done, but this is why I'm here. Like, this is why we build this community together to support and encourage and help one another. And I want to ask you today, do you have the courage to be happy today? Do you have the courage to say, stop giving my power away to things or people I cannot control? Do you have the courage to decide that today is going to be a Disney day, the greatest Disney day, even if I'm not in the parks? You get to choose to be able to believe and say, yes, of course, I wish I was in Disneyland or well Disney World, but I'm not there today. But I'm still gonna have the best day ever. I'm gonna choose to live the magic today. I'm gonna choose to believe that even though I didn't step foot in a Disney park yet, or I'm not there, that that feeling of joy can still be mine, that I can still choose to make the most out of my day. That's what I'm talking about. That's the power you have, my friends. Because here's the truth it's easy to focus on what's going wrong and miss everything that's going right. You've been excited for this season in your life. It's a brand new year. Doors you hope for have been opening or you see them opening. But sometimes when those doors show up, fear, doubt, and comparison sneak in, and you forget to enjoy the moment. You forget to embrace how far you've come. You know, there's a Greek philosopher by the name of Epictectus, and he said this: it's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. See, I'm telling you, it's it's our reactions that show who you really are. It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. That's the berm in action. Your personal power is in how you choose to react, my friends, because our reactions speak louder than words, and our reactions expose who we truly are. And that's exactly what my upcoming workshop is all about. I want to take a moment to just tell you what's coming that I'm so excited about. Every Disney villain, you think about whoever it is, Scar, Maleficent, Ursula, they're loud. That's what they're supposed to be in these movies. But you know what else is loud? Your inner villain voice. It says things like, you should be further along. Why aren't you getting what they have, right? Making you look at everyone else, what they have, all the wins, and just to compare yourself to kind of what you don't have. It's that voice that says, you messed it up again. That voice that says, you can't really do this. Do you think you can actually do this? Come on. Like that voice of doubt, that voice that that of fear. And I want you to see the power of the berm, how it teaches you to silence the villain voice. You don't argue with it. You build boundaries. Because if you argue with it, chances are you're gonna lose. So don't argue. It's remember, it's your reactions. You build boundaries, you decide what to let in and what to keep out. And I want to tell you that on January 28th, Wednesday, the 28th of January at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, I'm gonna have my first ever super pumped live online workshop called Silence the Villain. We're gonna silence the villain, the Disneyland mindset for becoming the hero of your story. And we're gonna practice exactly that. I want you to know that you're gonna learn how to recognize the villain voice before it hijacks your day. We're gonna talk about the number one villain voice that you need to be aware of that crushes your dreams, but you're gonna learn how to silence it. We're gonna look at how to fully step into your story and respond like a hero, not react like a villain. We're gonna we're gonna talk about the greatest, one of our greatest heroes, Walt Disney, and see how he reacted and responded to things to become a hero, man. And I'm so excited for this. So if you're on my email list, you already have all the info. If not, I want you to look at the description in this podcast episode because it's gonna give you all the details to be part of this free live event that I want to invite you to that's coming really soon. So here's your practical takeaway for today. Look around your life like Walt Disney looked at Disneyland. What do you want to block out? I want you to build your internal berm. I want you to see that internal berm and decide what's worthy of your attention today and what isn't. And then I want you to step into your day with intention. In fact, every day that you wake up and you are looking in the mirror, I want you to decide. I want you to say to yourself in the mirror, I choose to feel the magic today. Can you do that? Every day you look in the mirror and you make a declaration before you leave the house as you're looking at your beautiful self and you're gonna say, All right, today I choose to feel the magic. Today is going to be a magical day. I'm going to choose to live the magic today. Protect your peace. Respond but don't react. That's your power. You don't need to be anywhere special, you don't need to wait for the perfect moment. Your internal berm allows you to step into your own Disneyland anytime, today, right now. Your story is unfolding, your magic is real, and today you get to decide how it's framed. All right? Friends, I appreciate you. Much love to you as we continue on this journey. Thank you so much for spending time with me. I don't take it lightly. It means the world that you take time to be part of this magic. And if this episode resonated with you today, please share it with someone who needs a little reminder that their story and their peace is worth protecting. And remember, remember always to keep believing, to keep dreaming, and never forget that you are the magic because the magic is in you.